Finding an apartment in New York City with eleven thousand dolrs cash, no ID, no credit history, and no social security number was, shockingly, not straightforward.

  Who knew.

  I spent the better part of the morning getting turned away from pces that advertised themselves as 'flexible' and 'no questions asked' before learning that those phrases meant flexible about pets and no questions asked about your job history, not about your entire legal existence.

  Eventually, I found what I was looking for in a shadier part of the city.

  A sublease. Cash only. An Eastern European ndlord who looked me over once, looked at the cash I was holding, and made a decision that suggested he had done this before.

  "Two months up front," he said.

  "Fine."

  "No parties."

  "I don't know anyone."

  He seemed to find that satisfactory.

  The apartment itself was, and I say this generously, functional. Fourth floor walkup, one room, a kitchen the size of a rge closet, a bathroom where the shower and toilet had an uncomfortably close retionship. The window looked directly into the brick wall of the building next door.

  I stood in the middle of it and felt pretty happy.

  "Welp, it's better than nothing."

  After a week under a bridge and a few nights in a shelter, it felt like a penthouse.

  And anyway, I pnned on taking out more low-level criminal gangs to farm fear and cash, so chances were I wouldn't even end up staying here for the full two months.

  [Fear Point Bance: 312]

  The deyed FP from the warehouse had continued trickling in overnight. The story had apparently spread, dock workers talking, the woman with the dog telling her neighbours, someone posting something vague on a local forum about strange events near the pier, that kind of thing.

  I looked at the bance with satisfaction; it felt like I was making real progress now. Gone were the days of me terrorising the pygrounds of New York; I had a much more lucrative scheme going on now.

  I sat on the floor, there was no furniture, and pulled up the Fear Shop, looking through some particurly interesting abilities.

  [Fear Shop]

  [Base Sharingan — 7,000 FP]

  [Yami Yami No Mi — 152,000 FP]

  [Gun Devil Hybrid Contract — 500,000 FP]

  [Mahoraga's Adaptation — 1,200,000 FP]

  [The Almighty — 75,000,000 FP]

  I stared at the numbers for a long moment.

  There were hundreds, no, thousands of other abilities in the shop, but these were just a handful I thought were quite cool.

  If I continued at the rate I was currently at, getting the base Sharingan wouldn't take too long, but I was concerned about how exactly I'd be able to use it.

  In Naruto, Kakashi had to keep his eye covered since his Sharingan drained him constantly, so what about me, who had no chakra? Would I be able to use it? Would it be a detriment?

  My best guess was that the system would handle it, seeing as when I obtained Conqueror's Haki, I somewhat instinctively knew how to use it with zero training.

  Anyway, the Sharingan was a pretty cool ability that I wanted. The powers of the one tomoe Sharingan were pretty basic: enhanced perception, emotion reading, copying and basic genjutsu.

  The first three were solid, but chances were genjutsu wouldn't work, since the way genjutsu works in Naruto is by disrupting the flow of chakra in the victim's brain... so what would happen if the victim had no chakra?

  Regardless of those limitations, the other abilities were strong, and most importantly, it had growth potential, and it would help me farm fear.

  If I could get Mangekyo, that would basically kit me out as a top-tier vilin in and of itself.

  The spinning pinwheel eyes were incredibly effective at aurafarming, as we all know, so using them would definitely boost my fear factor.

  So, they were my short-term goal for the time being.

  As for my long-term goal, that would be the Yami Yami no mi, better known as the darkness devil fruit. If I could get that by the time of the Chitauri invasion, I'd be set.

  I wouldn't be untouchable, but considering that Logia devil fruits like the Yami Yami no mi were unable to be hit by physical attacks, I'd be able to instantly hard counter the majority of combatants on Earth.

  The fruit itself was naturally just incredibly strong. Controlling darkness and being able to create vortexes able to pull anything towards me with no means of resistance. It went without saying how powerful that was.

  As for the stuff above that price range...

  Of course, they were incredibly powerful, but I didn't think I'd be reaching them any time soon.

  If I managed to get the gun devil hybrid contract, granting me the abilities of the cataclysmically powerful Gun Devil of Chainsawman, I'd pretty much be able to solo the Chitauri myself.

  Going beyond that...

  Yhwach's Almighty. Literally nothing would be able to touch me. The ability to see and manipute all possible futures simultaneously, essentially making the user omniscient.

  In Bleach, it had rendered every single ability in the story completely obsolete the moment Yhwach had activated it. The guy essentially broke the concept of fighting itself so badly that even the author himself had no idea how to properly take him out.

  But at seventy-five million FP, I couldn't even dream of buying it.

  'One day.'

  I closed the shop and leaned back against the bare wall, staring at the ceiling.

  "Welp, baby steps. Let's get the Sharingan first."